PORTLAND, Maine — Several dozen protesters gathered Tuesday morning in Harbor View Memorial Park, attempting to stop municipal workers from clearing the city’s last large homeless encampment.
Their effort was not successful.
As police and heavy equipment arrived around 8 a.m., protesters blocked access to the park’s lower entrance, lining vehicles along Commercial Street and forming a human chain. However, police ticketed and towed the vehicles while work crews began clearing the park via the upper entrance, along York Street, where there were no protesters.
Safety-jacketed, rake-welding workers from Portland’s parks department checked to make sure tents were empty before waving in front loaders to crush and haul away debris, abandoned belongings and trash. Other workers picked through the former abodes, removing dozens of propane gas cylinders. Some used 3-foot-long grabbers to pick up spent hypodermic needles.
Tuesday’s clearance comes after being postponed twice before. Originally planned for Dec. 19, it was postponed until Dec. 28, when bad weather forced officials to put it off again.
Portland removed similarly large encampments from the Bayside Trail, the Fore River Parkway Trail and Deering Oaks Park in the fall. The state also removed an encampment from a parking lot on Marginal Way around the same time.
The city decided to clear the Harbor View Park encampment in December, when 80 to 100 beds began to go unused each night at the new Homeless Services Center on Riverside Street, after a new shelter for asylum seekers opened on Riverside Industrial Parkway.
Officials also cited ongoing safety concerns associated with the Harbor View encampment. One of the fears was that plowed snow flying off the Casco Bay Bridge could injure those in tents below. Also, with temperatures dropping, officials feared more tent-dwellers would be at risk for fires while trying to stay warm.
Two people in tents, one in Portland and the other in Sanford, recently died in tent fires. In total, there were 12 deaths in Portland campsites in 2023. As of Dec. 19, Portland officials also said there had been seven overdoses at Harbor View, one being fatal.
A woman who gave her name only as Amber (left) packs up her things, while campers hustle to pack what they can carry in Portland’s Harbor View Memorial Park on Tuesday morning as city work crews began clearing the large homeless encampment with heavy equipment. Credit: Troy R. Bennett / BDN
As the heavy equipment began to dismantle shanties and tents on Tuesday morning, nearby campers hurried to take what they could carry or wheel out in carts.
One woman, who gave her name as Amber, struggled to get her belongings out of a large green tent. She handed her things to an outreach worker from Preble Street, who was assisting her.
Amber said she’d been living in the park since September and wasn’t sure where she’d go next.
“Probably back to living in my truck,” she said. “Which is what I did before.”
Below, on Commercial Street, as it became clear their efforts were in vain, protesters began melting away. A few exchanged information on where they’d have to go to retrieve their towed cars. Among the carless was former Portland Mayor Ethan Strimling.
“You all gave up your cars for this?” asked a man packing his things outside a tent with an enormous white dog named Moose. “Thank you.”